Microsoft India launches off-site ERP service for small businesses news

06 August 2007

New Delhi: Microsoft India has announced the availability of its enterprise
resource planning (ERP) applications as a subscription service which will allow
businesses to use these solutions without the need to install it within the company''s
own premise.

This
model will increase the affordability of ERP solutions by eliminating upfront
capital expenditure and also eliminating the need for in-house IT resources and
additional infrastructure.

Customer
will have to pay on a per user per month basis. Microsoft believes that this new
offering will allow a much larger set of SMBs in India to adopt and benefit from
ERP services.

This
launch comes at a time when the market for ERP in India is booming, with increasing
number of firms especially in the SMB segment looking to adopt ERP solutions as
the first step to a broader IT deployment.

According
to IDC, the ERP market is expected to maintain a CAGR of 18 per cent over the
period 2006 -2010, with the SMB segment accounting for 47 per cent.

"By
reducing upfront investment costs and eliminating need for in-house IT management
resources, our new offering makes ERP solutions much more affordable and easy
to deploy," said Rajeev Mittal, group director, small and medium enterprises,
Microsoft India.

"We
are confident that the SMB segment in India will benefit from the accessibility
to ERP solutions that this model offers, and that it will in turn accelerate the
already healthy pace of IT adoption in the SMB community," Mittal added.

The
ERP application will be hosted by a Microsoft channel partner and can be accessed
by companies through multiple access modes such as VPN and internet. The partner
will also provide turnkey solutions right from initial set up and staff training,
to management of the application for the company and complaint resolution.

Microsoft''s
first partner for this service is Bangalore-based Affordable Business Solutions
(ABS), a leading IT solutions provider that is focused on the SMB market in India.

Users
who subscribe to the subscription-based ERP service can compile and submit the
initial ''master data'' items, bills of materials, customers, vendors, etc. with
the help of the channel partner and undergo a short training and test the configured
application with some sample data. Thereafter they can submit opening balances
for uploading and start using the ERP application.

Currently
ABS is offering 3, 5 and 10-user ERP packs for basic material and financial accounting
functionalities for a small business priced between Rs25,000 and Rs60,000 per
month, against the Rs10 lakh to Rs15 lakh upfront payment in the traditional model
not taking into account the additional cost of hiring and training an ERP professional
to manage the application.

"While
the hosted ERP application has all the functionalities available as in the traditional
on-site model of deployment, customers can opt to subscribe to the specific functionalities
that they need at the moment and expand the subscription to others when they are
ready," says. Srikant Rao, founder director, Affordable Business Solutions.

"Feedback
from initial conversations with customers has been very encouraging, and we believe that
this will trigger a rapid upswing in IT usage especially in the SMB segment in
India. We are proud to be the first to associate with Microsoft Dynamics to bring
the hosted, subscription-based ERP model to India," he added.